Two young men, Derryk Wilson, 17, of Lacey, and Charles Dorman, 20, most likely of Olympia, are dead after they exchanged gunfire in an Olympia parking lot the night of Friday, Aug. 21.
Both are believed to have died of suspected gunshot wounds, but Thurston County Coroner’s Office has not yet officially determined the subjects’ causes of death.
Wilson and Dorman met in a parking lot in the 2200 block of Harrison Avenue to settle a preexisting disagreement, the Olympia Police Department’s preliminary investigation found.
The disagreement reportedly escalated into an argument where both parties exchanged gunfire.
The Olympia Police Department responded to a report of a disturbance in the 2200 block of Harrison Avenue just before midnight on Aug. 21, according to department spokesperson Lt. Paul Lower.
Officers arrived to find Dorman dead at the scene.
While officers were still arriving at the scene, a nearby hospital notified dispatchers that a 17-year-old had just been admitted with gunshot wounds.
The 17-year-old, identified as Wilson, had been transported by a witness, according to Lower.
He received medical treatment at the hospital, but soon succumbed to his injuries.
Olympia Police Department detectives have contacted the witness and don’t believe there are any outstanding parties in this case.
“We don’t see any ongoing threat to the community,” Lower said Wednesday.
The Harrison Avenue parking lot was blocked off through early Saturday morning as detectives processed the scene.
Officers recovered one handgun and secured two vehicles, which detectives are seeking warrants to search.
The incident is still under investigation, as detectives are looking into the circumstances surrounding the subjects’ initial disagreement.
Olympia area sees a rise in gun violence
While there is no ongoing threat to the public, the incident reignited Olympia residents’ concerns about an apparent uptick of gun violence in the community.
A resident who lives near the site of Saturday’s shooting expressed her concerns, and those of her neighbors, to members of the Olympia City Council on Tuesday.
“I was hoping that maybe someone, the city council, mayor, would address the situation and perhaps calm our nerves,” the resident, Patricia Miller, said during public comment.
Olympia Mayor Dontae Payne responded to say the concerns of Miller and her neighbors are valid, and to condemn gun violence in the City of Olympia.
“That is something we cannot tolerate,” Payne said, adding that he felt “heartfelt sorrow” for the two deceased subjects in Saturday’s shooting and the gun violence that took their lives.
“It's something that these two young individuals were very much involved in, and should not ever happen to people who are in their late teens, early 20s, let alone anyone else,” Payne said.
Thurston County saw a total of 178 gun violence deaths between 2021 and 2025, for an average annual gun death rate of 11.9 per 100k population, according to data from the Center for Disease Control. That rate is lower than neighboring Lewis, Pierce and Grays Harbor counties’ rate of about 15 per 100k population, and Mason County’s rate of 16 per 100k population.
Crimes against people, which includes gun violence crimes, made up 28.5% of the total crime reported in Thurston County in 2024, the most-recent year available through the Thurston Regional Planning Council.
The majority of reported crimes in Thurston County, 65.2%, in 2024 were property crimes.
While data for 2025 is still being released and data from 2026 is still being collected, Olympia Police Chief Shelby Parker confirmed Tuesday that there is indeed an uptick of gun violence in the Olympia area.
“We have deployed a number of resources to try to get to the bottom of what is going on and to try to reduce the number of guns that are in the community,” Parker said.
While there is still “a tremendous amount of work to do,” Parker said that the Olympia Police Department is “ahead of the crisis.”
“I can appreciate it doesn't appear that way by the increase in violence, but I believe that had we not been doing the proactive work that we've been engaged in over the last months, that these numbers might be higher than they are right now,” Parker said.
There have so far been eight publicly-witnessed shootings in Olympia and neighboring cities of Tumwater and Lacey since November 2025.
At least three suspects were involved in a widely-witnessed shooting near Fourth and Franklin Street in the early morning of Saturday, July 25, where more than 20 shots were fired, two businesses were damaged and two people were injured.
One of the suspects, Ke’Marion D. Hill, 22, had his preliminary hearing in Thurston County Superior Court on Aug. 24, where bail for his case was set at $250,000. Arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 28.
In another incident, a Thurston County Sheriff’s Office deputy fatally shot a suspect, identified as Todd Bass, 44, of Lacey, who had fired at deputies in an Olympia-area backyard following a pursuit on April 28.
In another, a man was shot in the leg near Olympia’s largest homeless encampment, known colloquially as “The Jungle,” on March 6.
In neighboring Tumwater, a 17-year-old male was arrested for allegedly shooting at another male at a bus stop on Feb. 18, an incident that put Olympia High School on lockdown and sparked a manhunt.
In neighboring Lacey, an Olympia man allegedly shot three people inside a hotel on Feb. 14; a Lacey Police officer killed an armed man in a standoff on Jan. 21; and a man fatally shot another driver in a road rage incident on Dec. 19.
Lacey was also where two suspects allegedly killed brothers Alexander M. Borgen, 16, of Lacey, and Deven J. Borgen, 17, of Rainier, in a drive-by shooting on Nov. 14.
